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15 Responses to “Friday open thread”

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1. Sister Toldjah says:

   January 26, 2007 at 11:54 am

   Moved from another thread — ST

   Sorry this is abit off topic, but did anyone else hear Jimmy Carter on the Today Show say there was no attempt at a peace between Palestine and Israel in the last 6 years?? I was thinking to myself what was the “roadmap to peace” all about you fool. Why was Ariel Sharon giving away so much land to the Palestinians then?? Is this guy for Freeking real or is he just completely deluded. – Lorica

   Comment by Lorica @ 1/26/2007 – 11:11 am
2. sanity says:

   January 26, 2007 at 12:02 pm

   More on Carter as he ‘apologizes’ for stupid book passage:

   Jimmy Carter has apologized for what he called a “stupid” passage in his book that critics say is a de facto endorsement of Palestinian violence against Israelis.

   The former president had spent most of the past two months defending his new book, “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” after 15 board members at his Atlanta-based Carter Center resigned in protest of the book’s content.

   “I apologize to you personally and to everyone here,” Mr. Carter said when asked about the passage by a student during his appearance at Brandeis University on Tuesday. After explaining that the passage was “worded in a completely improper and stupid way,” Mr. Carter said he has asked publisher Simon & Schuster Inc. to change the wording in future editions of the book.

   Link

   I guess it only took 15 board members resigning to get it threw that thick skull of his that his book is offensive and drivel.
3. sanity says:

   January 26, 2007 at 12:06 pm

   sanity, I moved your comment to my earlier post on the issue. –ST
4. sanity says:

   January 26, 2007 at 12:23 pm

   Frontpage has a an article / esseay written by none other than Jim Webb, definately something you need to read:

   Newly elected Sen. James Webb, D-VA, wrote this essay in the fall of 1995. The lessons about one lost war, and its instructive value for those who would force us into a second (including Sen. Webb), should prove obvious. — The Editors.

   ….

   In the first fifteen years or so following Saigon’s fall, there was nothing but bad news to report from Vietnam, and those who had made their political and journalistic careers on the wrongfulness of the war bear a culpability for persistently failing to report it. Similarly, during the twentieth anniversary observances these icons and their intellectual progeny persisted in focusing almost solely on the conduct of the war during Mr. McNamara’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, which ended in disgrace in late 1967. It was as if the political, military and even moral issues had been decided in favor of the communists by that point, and the ensuing eight years of fighting and twenty years of suffering were merely an afterthought.

   A Disservice to Understanding the War

   The end result was a startling disservice to a full understanding of the war. Media depictions of the fighting typically showed tired and frustrated American and South Vietnamese soldiers, while often using stock propaganda footage of communist troops marching cheerfully down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The elders who made their names in younger days on such allegations as U.S. troops lying about their “body counts” gave almost no mention of the horrendous communist military casualties, despite the most newsworthy item of those few weeks: the Hanoi government officially admitting it lost 1. 1 million soldiers dead and another 300,000 still missing from the fighting, compared to American losses of 58,000 and South Vietnamese of 254,000. And few discussions recalled the Hanoi pledge in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords that Vietnam would be reunited only by peaceful means, with guarantees of individual freedoms in the South, as well as internationally supervised free elections.

   To the contrary, on the heels of Mr. McNamara’s comments regarding the “unwinnable” strategy he concocted and failed to adjust during the first four years of war, media air waves were filled with a litany of speeches proclaiming “vindication” by those who otherwise might have been forced to answer hard questions regarding their conduct and beliefs during the late 1960s and early 1970s. For some, such conduct was betrayal. For others, it was only a stupefying naiveté. But for most, there has been a persistent conspiracy of silence that has lasted for decades, accompanied of late by an attempt to leap over the carcasses and the devastation that followed the communist takeover, to simply pretend it did not happen.

   When forced to comment, those who opposed our attempt to assist the building of a democracy in the South picked up the debate in its present makeup, pointing to the Hanoi government’s efforts in the past few years to liberalize the economy and reach out to the Americans in the wake of the collapse of their Soviet ally and the continuing menacing growth of the Chinese.

   As a consequence, the best opportunity of a lifetime was lost for the many who still wish to put a generation’s most bitterly divisive period into proper historical perspective.

   Few, if any, of the old anti-war luminaries, Stanley Karnow, Neil Sheehan, David Halberstam, George McGovern, Peter Arnett, ‘Tom Harkin, Bill or Hillary Clinton-the list could fill the page-could find it in themselves to conjure up an apology, or admit they were wrong in judging a communist apparatus that brought Southeast Asia’s strongest and most pro-Western culture back into the dark ages, only to haltingly emerge fifteen years later reeking of torture, prison camps, Stalinism and corruption.

   ….

   The people who directed the antiwar movement did not care whether McNamara had a workable strategy, or whether it could have been adapted to circumstances. They did not care whether Nixon’s Vietnamization program might have worked. They did not care whether the South Vietnamese should have been given an adequate chance to adjust their strategy after the American withdrawal. And they did not care whether the communists signed a pledge guaranteeing free elections and a peaceful reunification of the country. Quite simply, they wanted the communists to win. Those who were adults during the Vietnam era know this truth full well. Others, however, particularly our children, have seen it glazed over and even denied as the reality of what happened after 1975 became ever more clear.

   ….

   Only by comprehending that Vietnam was the first war where a generation’s elite not only excused itself from fighting but often openly supported the side that was killing their own countrymen can we understand the persistent defamation of those who served. And only by comprehending that the antiwar movement’s dilatory effect was Hanoi’s greatest ace in the hole can we understand why the communists had few reasons ever to compromise at the negotiating table.

   Link Very Interesting article indeed.

   Read the rest.
5. sanity says:

   January 26, 2007 at 1:06 pm

   Hot off the presses…Shiite militia to lay down weapons.

   BAGHDAD (AFP) – A feared Shiite militia, accused by US commanders of operating death squads, is ready to disarm in its Baghdad bastion if police provide residents with protection, a government official has said.

   One of two district commissioners appointed by the central government to administer the sprawling Sadr City area dominated by the Mahdi Army militia of radical leader Moqtada Sadr said the militia was ready to implement its offer as soon as government forces deployed.

   “We have said repeatedly that the popular committees (the Mahdi Army) will put down their weapons as soon as Iraqi forces enter this area,” Karim Hassan Matar told AFP on Friday.

   “If Iraqi forces were up to the job, weapons would be laid down all over Baghdad.”

   Link

   How much will this get play?

   CBS? NBC? ABC? CNN? FOX?

   I know, Katie couric will be all over this right and she will have on her ’smart glass’.

   Media? Hello? Anyone?

   This will get filed in the round file along with the US economy, Jobs, Housing market, Gas Prices, ect., if it looks good for Bush, they can’t or won’t report on it.
6. Ryan says:

   January 26, 2007 at 1:06 pm

   It’s a beautiful Friday morning here in the Bay Area, and I have the day off.

   For anyone out there with Directv or Dish Network, or in the great state of Minnesota, I suggest tuning in Fox Sports North tonight to catch some intense college hockey action between my Minnesota Golden Gophers and the North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
7. NC Cop says:

   January 26, 2007 at 6:42 pm

   I’m going to the Hurricanes, I mean the 2005-2006 STANLEY CUP CHAMPION!!!, Hurricanes game on Tues. They are playing the Toronto Maple Leafs! Should be a good game!
8. sanity says:

   January 26, 2007 at 9:09 pm

   This is a worthwhile read.

   A week after NBC News reporter Jane Arraf conceded that life in Iraq “isn’t entirely what it seems” from the constant media focus on bombings, the Friday NBC Nightly News gave rare voice to soldiers in Iraq disturbed by criticism of the war back home. Embedded with the Army’s Stryker Brigade’s Apache Company in Hurriya, Richard Engel relayed how “troops here say they are increasingly frustrated by American criticism of the war. Many take it personally, believing it is also criticism of what they’ve been fighting for. Twenty-one-year-old Specialist Tyler Johnson is on his first tour in Iraq. He thinks skeptics should come over and see what it’s like firsthand before criticizing.” Johnson asserted: “You may support or say we support the troops, but, so you’re not supporting what they do, what they’re here sweating for, what we bleed for, what we die for. It just don’t make sense to me.”

   Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun directly took on the spin of war critics, complaining that “one thing I don’t like is when people back home say they support the troops, but they don’t support the war. If they’re going to support us, support us all the way.” Engel soon powerfully concluded: “Apache Company has lost two soldiers, and now worries their country may be abandoning the mission they died for.”

   Read & watch the video

   Congress? Murtha? kerry? You don’t think te troops hear what is going on back here in America? You don’t think your words affect our troops?

   Bullshit.

   The troops aren’t stupid and as this embedded NBC reporter notes and reports, they feel like America is abandonning them.
9. sanity says:

   January 27, 2007 at 10:07 am

   EX-president carter has lost his mind. not sure if he had one to begin with, but this PROVES he has lost his mind…..

   Jimmy Carter: ‘Too many Jews’ on Holocaust council… WND via Drudge

   Former president also rejected Christian historian because name sounded ‘too Jewish’ Aaron Klein

   TEL AVIV – Former President Jimmy Carter once complained there were “too many Jews” on the government’s Holocaust Memorial Council, Monroe Freedman, the council’s former executive director, told WND in an exclusive interview.

   Freedman, who served on the council during Carter’s term as president, also revealed a noted Holocaust scholar who was a Presbyterian Christian was rejected from the council’s board by Carter’s office because the scholar’s name “sounded too Jewish.”

   Link

   Freedman says he was tasked with creating a board for the council and with making recommendations to the White House on how best to memorialize the Holocaust.

   He told WND he sent a memo to Carter’s office containing recommendations for council board members.

   He said his memo was returned with a note on the upper right hand corner that stated, “Too many Jews.”

   The note, Freedman said, was written in Carter’s handwriting and was initialed by Carter.

   Freedman said at the time the board he constructed was about 80-perent Jewish, including many Holocaust survivors.

   He said at the behest of the White House he composed another board consisting of more non-Jews. But he said he was “stunned” when Carter’s office objected to a non-Jew whose name sounded Jewish.

   First here at Atlas Shrugs.

   You put together a Holocaust council, you would think it would be filled with Holocaust survivors or family members of those who were victims. I would also think it would be mainly jewish since they were the ones mostly affected (murdered, killed, attepted genoicide).

   So why in the world who you make yourself sound like a bigot, racial, anti-semite when he makes remarks as names sound to jewish or refusing them because there is too many jews on a council about the Holocaust?

   Here is one for you carter, is there too many peanuts in peanut butter?

   Looks like its not just the passages in his book that are stupid, but the man himself is also.
10. Lorica says:

    January 27, 2007 at 10:57 am

    Carter is proving himself to be more and more anti-jewish in his elder years. I think the man has lost his mind. It is sad, that he has listened to the advice of those people who encourage him to continue to speak out. – Lorica
11. Great White Rat says:

    January 27, 2007 at 11:03 am

    Staff Sergeant Manuel Sahagun directly took on the spin of war critics, complaining that “one thing I don’t like is when people back home say they support the troops, but they don’t support the war. If they’re going to support us, support us all the way.”

    But don’t dare question the patriotism of those liberals who do love to undercut the troops!
12. Mwalimu Daudi says:

    January 28, 2007 at 11:48 am

    Repeating an earlier prediction:

    Colts 23, Da Bears 16
13. Mwalimu Daudi says:

    January 28, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    Top Ten: Myths of the Iraq War
14. sanity says:

    January 28, 2007 at 10:10 pm

    Question:
    When did the job of President of the Untied States need some sort of ‘minority’ quota?

    Sure seems like it when I hear garbage like this:

    ‘About time’ for woman president…

    Or about time for a black President, or hispanic President, ect.

    Here is a thought, how about a President that is EFFECTIVE, regardless of race, gender or creed?

    Does it matter if it is a man or woman as long as they are effective and do a good job?

    Does it matter if they are black, white, green, blue or purple as long as they do a good job?

    I am tired of people playing with race issues and gender issues like it is something so unique.

    Whatever happened to voting for someone who will get the job done, and who will do a good job doing it? Not voting because they are a woman, or a man, or a certain color.
15. sanity says:

    January 29, 2007 at 2:12 am

    Troop surge hasn’t happened yet, but already getting results.

    Funny that.

    Three interesting things have happened since President Bush announced plans to “surge” U.S. troops.

    First, al Qaida appears to be retreating from Baghdad. A military intelligence officer has confirmed to Richard Miniter, editor of Pajamas Media, a report in the Iraqi newspaper al Sabah that Abu Ayyub al Masri, the head of al Qaida in Iraq, has ordered a withdrawal to Diyala province, north and east of Baghdad.

    Mr. al Masri’s evacuation order said that remaining in Baghdad is a no-win situation for al Qaida, because the Fallujah campaign demonstrating the Americans have learned how to prevail in house to house fighting, Mr. Miniter said.

    “In more than 10 years of reading al Qaida intercepts, I’ve never seen (pessimistic) language like this,” he quoted his intelligence officer source as saying.

    Second, the radical cleric Moqtada al Sadr, whose Iranian-subsidized militia, the Mahdi army, is responsible for most of the assaults on Sunni civilians in Iraq, is cooling his rhetoric and lowering his profile.

    “Mahdi army militia members have stopped wearing their black uniforms, hidden their weapons and abandoned their checkpoints in an apparent effort to lower their profile in Baghdad in advance of the arrival of U.S. reinforcements,” wrote Leila Fadel and Zaineb Obeid of the McClatchy Newspapers Jan. 13.

    Third, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is putting more distance between himself and al Sadr, upon whose bloc of votes in parliament he had relied for political support.

    Last Friday al Sadr ordered the 30 lawmakers and six cabinet ministers he controls to end the boycott of the government he ordered two months ago. AP writer Steven Hurst described this Monday as “a desperate bid to fend off an all out American offensive.”

    Despite this, Mr. Maliki consented to the arrest that same day of Abdul Hadi al Durraji, al Sadr’s media director in Baghdad. Mr. Sadr said Saturday some 400 of his supporters have been arrested in recent days.

    ….

    Though they may turn out to be fleeting, the troop surge, though barely begun, already is producing beneficial results. Efforts to write it off in advance as a “failure” are, at best, premature.

    Link

    Troop surge not even underway yet, and already results are happening.

    After the first surge, I wonder if Bush can use that in talks with different parties, and let them know we can park an additional 100,000 troops in a short time if they don’t want to cooperate. Whether it is true or not, this is a 20,000 troop surge and already it looks like we are getting some major changes underway.

    Also would make an excellent ‘bargaining’ tool dealing with Iran if we had a good size force off their border. It is one thing to be touting hardliner rhetoric about destroying Israel and the US, but a completely different story when those that your threatening are right outside of your house so to speak.

    Reminds me of Rodney Carrignton (comedian), gets cut off while driving, gets out of the car swearing and ranting at the guy who cut him off, till he gets up to him…”damn your a big bastard….I just wanted to tell you I was wrong and way out of line back there….”

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